Soil stabilizing and conditioning, and road reclaiming, machines having a horizontally disposed rotary cutter for working soil or roadway materials, are well known in the art. A machine of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,746,101, issued Jul. 17, 1973 to Harry H. Takata, and later assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Such machines typically have a protective hood member covering a rotary cutter and forming an open bottom mixing chamber for pulverizing materials excavated by the cutter. The hood member may further provide a support for nozzles or other fixtures by which additives are delivered to the mixing chamber and blended with the excavated material.
An improved hood support arrangement is described in copending U.S. application Ser. No. 07/829013, filed Oct. 22, 1991 by the inventor of the present invention and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. The improved hood support arrangement includes a pair of springs, attached to the machine frame, which cooperate to maintain the lateral, i.e., side-to-side, orientation of the hood member and support a portion of the weight of the hood member during ground engaging operation of the machine. Importantly, the improved hood support arrangement described in the referenced application also has a fixed length stabilizing link pivotally connected between the machine frame and the protective hood assembly to prevent fore-and-aft pitching of the hood member during raising, lowering, travel with the hood raised, and during cutting operations.
The machine elements enclosed by the hood member, such as the rotor and cutting tools, periodically require repair or replacement. Heretofore, opening a rear gate on the hood member provided only limited access to the rotor and cutting tools. Consequently, operators often drove the rear wheels of the machine up onto a mound and positioned the service area over a hole, or depression, in the ground to provide sufficient working room. Such difficulties in accessing the rotor and cutting tools are undesirable because they increase the time and cost of providing necessary maintenance, replacement, and repair services.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the problems set forth above. It is desirable to have a hood assembly for a soil stabilizing or road reclaiming machine that is maintained in a desired protective orientation during normal operation and movement of the machine, but which may be easily moved, by rotation or tilting, to a non-protective position for carrying out service or repair operations. Furthermore, it is desirable to have such a hood assembly that does not require separate elements for stabilizing the hood during normal operation and tilting the hood for servicing or repairing machine elements protected by the hood.